The 20 best spine-tingling supernatural movies on Amazon Prime Video

Black Box (2020)

The mind is a terrible thing to waste, and in the horror sci-fi film Black Box, mind games run rampant. Nolan Wright is a single father suffering from amnesia after surviving a car crash that killed his wife. Struggling to remember how to perform basic tasks both at work and in his personal life, Nolan reaches out to a neurologist who deems him a perfect candidate for her experimental black box treatment. Repeated journeys into his mind force Nolan to battle the monsters in his memories, but the deeper he delves, the more he suspects that his past is not what it seems.

A Blumhouse Television production full of twists, turns, and traumas that push Nolan to horrifying realizations, Black Box questions how much control we really have over our minds, and the lengths to which people will go to keep their loved ones alive. —Ilana Gordon

Where to watch Black Box: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr.

Cast: Mamoudou Athie, Phylicia Rashad, Amanda Christine, Tosin Morohunfola, Charmaine Bingwa

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

In 1994, three student filmmakers hike into the wooded area surrounding Maryland’s Black Hills to shoot a documentary about a witch and are never heard from again. A year later, footage from their cameras is discovered, giving some insight into the events leading up to their disappearance. When The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999, the indie horror film helped redefine the genre, creating a market for found footage films and releasing an online advertising campaign so believable, some audience members thought the actors who starred in the movie were actually dead.

The film’s premise — while terrifying — is ultimately superfluous. In true Hitchcockian form, the scariest parts of The Blair Witch Project are those that go unseen and unexplained, inviting audiences to use their imaginations to fill in the blanks. The filmmakers understood that the unknown is always the scariest option — and their film proves them right. —I.G.

Where to watch The Blair Witch Project: Amazon Prime Video

EW grade: B (read the review)

Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez 

Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard 

Children of the Corn (1984)

What would you do to ensure a successful corn harvest? For the children of the rural (and fictional) town of Gatlin, Neb., the answer is murder. A slasher film adapted from Stephen King’s 1977 short story, Children of the Corn tells the story of a supernatural entity known as “He Who Walks Behind the Rows,” whose malevolent presence motivates Gatlin youth to ritually murder all the local adults — plus a few others for good measure — to make sure that year’s corn harvest is a bountiful one. The first in a franchise that includes 10 films — including a 2023 remake directed by Kurt Wimmer — Children of the Corn is violent, tense, and only a little corny. —I.G.

Where to watch Children of the Corn: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Fritz Kiersch

Cast: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, John Franklin, Courtney Gains, Robby Kiger, Anne Marie McEvoy, Julie Maddalena, R. G. Armstrong

The Deep House (2021)

An English-language, horror movie set in France, The Deep House follows two American YouTubers (James Jagger and Camille Rowe) as they travel the country, searching for haunted houses. But after discovering a mansion submerged in a lake, the couple finds themselves launched into the deep end of some nasty supernatural business.

Haters of deep water, Satanic imagery, and sustained suspense need not apply: The Deep House runneth over with all three. But lovers of slow moving, found footage films with unique settings (a significant portion of the action takes place underwater) will find much to love about this ambitious horror movie. —I.G.

Where to watch The Deep House: Amazon Prime Video

Directors: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury

Cast: James Jagger, Camille Rowe

Evil Eye (2020)

Soulmates and reincarnation figure heavily into the supernatural vibes of Evil Eye, the third installment of the Welcome to the Blumhouse anthology of horror films on Amazon Prime Video. Sarita Choudhury stars as Usha, a woman who only wants the best for her daughter — a wealthy, handsome Indian suitor — but when Pallavi (Sunita Mani) begins dating Sandeep (Omar Maskati), attraction soon reveals itself to be an other-worldly obsession. What if someone’s stalker was powered by the supernatural?

That’s the terrifying conceit at the core of Evil Eye, and worse, Usha sees Sandeep’s true intentions, but no one, including her daughter, will believe her. Rule of thumb: If a guy like Sandeep seems too good to be true, he probably is. And when he’s using out-of-this-world forces to fuel his obsessive, controlling behavior, a mother’s love may be its only match. —Johnny Loftus

Where to watch Evil Eye: Amazon Prime Video

Directors: Elan Dassani, Rajeev Dassani

Cast: Sarita Choudhury, Sunita Mani, Omar Maskati, Bernard White

The Golem (2018)

Set in 17th century Lithuania, The Golem is an Israeli supernatural horror film based on a monster from Jewish folklore. Benjamin (Ishai Golan) and Hanna (Hani Furstenberg) are a young couple living in a small Jewish village, struggling to conceive seven years after the death of their son. When the Jews in their area are accused of cursing their fellow peasants with the Black Death, Hanna summons a Golem to protect the village from its enemies. But even though the Golem Hanna creates looks strangely like her dead son, she soon learns the creature has no allegiance to her — or the people she intends for it to protect.

Directed by the Paz brothers (JeruZalem) and filmed outside of Kyiv, Ukraine, The Golem is the rare horror project that feels both historical and modern, juxtaposing unique details and themes from Jewish mythology atop familiar genre tropes, and ending up with a singular vision that speaks to grief, gender roles, and the thin line between victim and aggressor. —I.G.

Where to watch The Golem: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Doron Paz, Yoav Paz

Cast: Hani Furstenberg, Ishai Golan, Brynie Furstenberg, Adi Kvetner, Lenny Ravich, Lex Tritenko

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018)

YouTubers will do a lot of questionable things for views, but in Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, one channel’s livestream ends with more of its participants dead than alive. A South Korean found footage horror film set in the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, the movie follows a web series creator and the six people he recruits to explore the abandoned building. Drawn to room 402, the former intensive care unit, the group encounters supernatural entities they can’t explain and danger they can’t escape.

Based on the real-life Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital — a South Korean asylum that was considered one of the country’s most haunted buildings before it was demolished in 2018 — the film starts off slow, but will have you lunging for the lights by the time the ending arrives. —I.G.

Where to watch Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Jung Bum-shik

Cast: Wi Ha-joon, Park Ji-hyun, Oh Ah-yeon, Moon Ye-won, Park Sung-hoon, Yoo Je-yoon, Lee Seung-wook, Park Ji-a

Hell House LLC (2015)

What if you combined the verité grooves of documentary-style found footage, the inherent creepiness of a haunted house attraction, and the sense of uncertainty around a horrifying and mysterious incident of violence? Well, you’d have something like Hell House LLC. Amidst frantic local media coverage, interviews with inquisitive journalists, and even a cryptic YouTube video from a spectator, the death of 15 people in the basement of Hell House remains a mystery… that is until the lone survivor of the team behind the attraction comes forward with tapes documenting the terrors leading up to that fateful night.

This 2015 indie horror hit has capitalized on its cult following with two ensuing sequels, but don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s enough going on in the first Hell House to occupy your supernatural curiosity, and that’s before the rumors and suspicions of satanic cult activity come into play. —J.L.

Where to watch Hell House LLC: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Stephen Cognetti

Cast: Ryan Jennifer Jones, Danny Bellini, Gore Abrams, Jared Hacker, Adam Schneider, Alice Bahlke

Hellraiser (1987)

With a newer Hellraiser reboot available to stream on Hulu, this is your chance to glory over the gloom, gore, and arch world-building of the original 1987 British horror film. Written and directed by genre legend Clive Barker, and based on his own novella The Hellbound Heart, this is our first introduction to the pierced, sadomasochistic dimensional beings known as the Cenobites, who are unleashed on Earth to conduct wholesale supernatural mayhem on pleasure-seeking humans.

Who are the Cenobites? Lead by Pinhead and his legions, these Hell-dwellers can no longer distinguish between pleasure and pain, and serve as the antagonists in Hellraiser and its many sequels. In their ranking of all the Hellraiser films, an EW contributor writes that the original film “is as close to an absolutely perfect horror film as one could reasonably find.” —J.L.

Where to watch Hellraiser: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Clive Barker

Cast: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Ashley Laurence

House (1985)

Nobody expected that a small, comedic horror movie about a writer working on his novel in a haunted house would go on to rival Pretty in Pink at the box office, but that is the story of House, the film that launched a franchise. Starring William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, and Kay Lenz, the movie follows a writer (Katt) who moves into his aunt’s old Victorian home after her death, only to find himself hounded by flashbacks of his fallen Vietnam War buddy, his missing son, and other assorted monsters.

A family-friendly horror movie that is light on scares and heavy on laughs, House is the kind of ‘80s film capable of entertaining and evoking nostalgia for simpler times when ghosting only happened in real life, instead of via text. —I.G.

Where to watch House: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Steve Miner

Cast: William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz

In My Mother’s Skin (2023)

During the tail-end of World War II — as Japanese soldiers continued to sow terror across the Philippines — a well-heeled family remains confined in their fortress-like mansion. When her father (Arnold Reyes) leaves in pursuit of aid from Americans, a young girl named Tala (Felicity Kyle Napuli) is left to deal with her dying mother, whose waning health drives her daughter to seek refuge from an Engkanto (Jasmine Curtis-Smith): a disconcerting, ever-smiling fairy who carries insidious plans to consume them from within.

Premiering at Sundance as part of the festival’s “Midnight” section, this Filipino folk horror is an effective slow-burn enriched with provocative imagery and absorbing costume and sound design. But beyond its artsy veneer, In My Mother’s Skin operates as a parable for the agonies endured by a nation ravaged by colonial exploitation. —James Mercadante

Where to watch In My Mother’s Skin: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Kenneth Dagatan

Cast: Beauty Gonzalez, Felicity Kyle Napuli, James Mavie Estrella, Angeli Bayani, Ronnie Lazaro, Jasmine Curtis-Smith

Lake Mungo (2010)

Given that everything natural on the continent is designed to kill you, Australia seems an ideal setting for a horror movie. But in the psychological horror film Lake Mungo — set in Ararat, Australia — the fear isn’t born from external foes, but rather from the terror required to succumb to the depths of human feeling. Lake Mungo begins with the accidental drowning of 16-year-old Alice Palmer. Upon returning home, her brother Matthew believes he sees Alice’s ghost, but further investigation from the Palmer family reveals that Alice was seeing premonitions of her death.

Far from providing closure, the family begins to realize that the more they learn about Alice’s personal life, the less they understand about what happened to her. Shot in mockumentary style and incorporating elements of found footage, Lake Mungo is, at its core, a horror movie about human behavior and navigating grief. —I.G.

Where to watch Lake Mungo: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Joel Anderson 

Cast: Talia Zucker, Rosie Traynor, David Pledger

The Last Exorcism (2010)

Christianity and the devil collide in The Last Exorcism, a found footage film about a disillusioned preacher who agrees to perform one last exorcism as part of a documentary. Reverend Marcus (Patrick Fabian) hopes to expose himself, and the ritual, as fraudulent. But the devil gets there first, confronting him with a young girl who, for the first time, looks to actually be battling evil spirits.

EW’s critic writes that the film “is a nightmare vision of the rise of Christian fundamentalism. It’s about the dark side of piety — the cultish wrath that can emerge out of the high and the mighty.” Fans of The Blair Witch Project and the Paranormal Activity franchise will find similar stylistic energy and much to enjoy in The Last Exorcism and its sequel, The Last Exorcism Part II (2013). —I.G.

Where to watch The Last Exorcism: Amazon Prime Video

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Daniel Stamm

Cast: Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Caleb Landry Jones

Malicious (2018)

You can’t compile a list of must-see supernatural movies without including Malicious, a film containing all of the genre’s favorite tropes and greatest hits: a newly married couple, a pregnant woman left alone in an unfamiliar, new home, a mysterious box, a creepy doll, and, of course, ghosts cosplaying as cheerleaders. The film follows Adam (Josh Stewart) and Lisa (Bojana Novakovic) as they move into a new home provided by the University where Adam has accepted a job as a professor. But after Lisa opens a mysterious gift from her sister, her pregnancy takes a turn for the sinister, and she becomes convinced her unborn child has been transmuted into something malicious.

Also starring the always terrific Delroy Lindo as Dr. Clark, a parapsychologist intent on getting to the bottom of whatever is causing Adam and Lisa’s supernatural issues, Malicious delivers a terrifying cinematic interpretation of its tagline, “Children are a gift from hell.” —I.G.

Where to watch Malicious: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Michael Winnick

Cast: Bojana Novakovic, Josh Stewart, Melissa Bolona, Delroy Lindo

The Manor (2021)

Fans of FX’s long-running series American Horror Story may recognize the gothic artistry of The Manor’s Axelle Carolyn (who also helmed episodes of the horror franchise). Boasting similar vibes to AHS, The Manor stars Barbara Hershey as Judith, a former dancer in her youth, who becomes the newest resident of a creaky old nursing home after she suffers a stroke. The other residents of Golden Sun Manor seem to be dying at an alarming rate, and Judith soon discovers how supernatural forces keep other people alive even longer.

The Manor is another addition to the Welcome to the Blumhouse series, and returns Hershey to horror after her terrific turn in the Insidious franchise. In The Manor, evil forces and her own fractured mind are working against Judith. “Even her devoted grandson Josh (Nicholas Alexander) thinks her fears are the result of dementia, not demons,” writes Clark Collis for EW. —J.L.

Where to watch The Manor: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Axelle Carolyn

Cast: Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison, Stacey Travis, Ciera Payton, Jill Larson, Mark Steger

Master (2022)

The rumor going around the halls of the fictional East Coast college, Ancaster, is that the elite, Ivy League institution has long been haunted by the ghost of a convicted witch. A supernatural, psychological thriller, Master stars Regina Hall as Gail, the first Black master — or head of the college. Gail’s tenure at the school coincides with the arrival of freshman student named Jasmine (Zoe Renee, who appears in the Hunger Games film, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), whose assigned room has its own beyond-the-grave history, and whose roommate is a separate horror story altogether.

Representing writer-director Mariama Diallo’s debut feature, Master is a smart, specific film set in a toxic environment that is poised to combust. EW’s senior movies editor writes that the movie is a “never-less-than-memorable feature debut, both an indictment of racist institutions and a horror movie in the vein of Get Out and Candyman.” —I.G.

Where to watch Master: Amazon Prime Video

EW grade: A– (read the review)

Director: Mariama Diallo

Cast: Regina Hall, Zoe Renee, Amber Gray, Molly Bernard, Nike Kadri

Saint Maud (2021)

Religious conversion often comes following a religious experience. A moment of ecstasy and understanding gives way to commitment which gives way to…what? The stark divide between before Christ and after is a source of terror for many a saint and writer-director Rose Glass’ first feature is one of the most effective genre pieces about the complexities of conversion. Morfydd Clark stars as the titular Maud, a shy nurse with a murky past who can’t help but worm her newfound faith into her work with hospice patients.

EW lauds Saint Maud as a “remarkable feature debut for Glass, who conjures an intimate mood of psychological horror before veering assuredly into a more extreme freakout.” Glass also spoke to us about Maud’s, shall we say, strange relationship to what she perceives to be God. “I didn’t want it to be this cerebral faith that we just have to go with,” Glass says. “There needed to be something tangible about it.” —Kathryn Vandervalk

Where to watch Saint Maud: Amazon Prime Video

EW grade: B+ (read the review)

Director: Rose Glass

Cast: Morfydd Clark, Jennifer Ehle

Suspiria (2018)

In a creative pivot, director Luca Guadagnino followed up his hit Call Me by Your Name with Suspiria, a period retelling of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic that features the incomparable Tilda Swinton playing three different characters (one of whom is male), Dakota Johnson, and new-era scream queen Mia Goth. When a sheltered young woman named Susie (Johnson) travels to Germany and joins an exclusive dance company, she encounters a whole different kind of company in the coven of witches who run the place.

EW’s critic highlights some of “the incredibly effective sequences in the film, including one showstopper in which Susie auditions for the lead part in a piece while, in a nearby studio, one of her fellow dancers is violently whipped around like a rag doll, her joints contorting like a possessed Swiss Army knife.” —I.G.

Where to watch Suspiria: Amazon Prime Video

EW grade: N/A (read the review)

Director: Luca Guadagnino

Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, Angela Winkler, Chloë Grace Moretz

The Taking of Deborah Logan (2008)

Speaking of found footage, the technique still had legs in 2014 when filmmaker Adam Robitel utilized it to a terrifically unsettling effect in his directorial debut, The Taking of Deborah Logan. This time, film students set out to document one aging woman’s bout with Alzheimer’s, but instead discover something much more sinister lurking in her mental cavities. The fear and mystery of a chronically debilitating disease, the brutal legacy of infamous past slayings, and talk of rituals and reincarnation are all at work in this oft-overlooked gem of 2010s supernatural horror.

While the film eventually established a steady following, that wasn’t clear at first. “It was devastating,” Robitel tells EW about its underwhelming release. “I had gone into serious debt making the movie so I was like, oh, I failed, I’m a failure. But, that weekend, on Netflix, a million people saw and shared it. It was so vindicating, without any sort of marketing might or anything, for people to have discovered it.” —J.L.

Where to watch The Taking of Deborah Logan: Amazon Prime Video

Director: Adam Robitel

Cast: Jill Larson, Anne Ramsay, Michelle Ang, Ryan Cutrona

We Are Still Here (2015)

We Are Still Here is a 2015 period indie horror from writer-director Ted Geoghegan, and a film that proves that when it comes to the supernatural, the horrific, and things proverbially going bump in the night, there’s no better setting than a proper haunted house. Here, genre legend Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, Chopping Mall, You’re Next) and Andrew Sensenig star as a couple inspired to move into a mysterious new home after the traumatic loss of their young son. But despite seeking a fresh start, all they get is meddling townspeople, longstanding secrets, and a home with its own blood to spill.

Taking a cue (or two or three) from early-’80s chillers like The Fog and The House by the Cemetery, EW’s critic writes of We Are Still Here, “Ted Geoghegan’s directorial debut has enough decent scares to push it past pastiche.” —J.L.

Where to watch We Are Still Here: Amazon Prime Video

EW grade: N/A (read the review)

Director: Ted Geoghegan

Cast: Barbara Crampton, Andrew Sensenig, Larry Fessenden, Lisa Marie, Monte Markham